SK hynix & SanDisk Launch HBF Storage Strategy

On February 25, SK hynix teamed up with SanDisk at the latter's headquarters in Milpitas, California, to launch the “HBF Standardization Alliance,” unveiling a global strategy for the next-generation memory solution HBF (High Bandwidth Flash) designed for the AI inference era.

SK hynix stated, “By making HBF an industry standard, together with Sandisk, we will lay the foundation for the entire AI ecosystem to grow together. A dedicated workstream under OCP* will be launched with Sandisk to begin standardization work.”

* Open Compute Project (OCP): A world's largest open data center technology initiative

As the AI industry transitions from large language model (LLM) training to real-world inference applications, the demand for high-speed, efficient storage has become critical. Traditional storage architectures struggle to meet the dual requirements of massive data throughput and energy efficiency during inference. HBF emerges as a solution to bridge this gap, offering a new memory tier between HBM and SSDs.

HBF is designed to combine HBM-level performance with the capacity and scalability of NAND flash, addressing both storage expansion and energy efficiency needs for AI inference. In this architecture, HBM provides peak bandwidth, while HBF works in deep coordination with it.

Beyond boosting AI system scalability, HBF can significantly lower total ownership costs (TCO). Industry forecasts anticipate strong market growth for integrated storage solutions featuring HBF, potentially expanding widely by around 2030.

In AI inference, competitive advantage depends not only on individual chip performance but also on system-level optimization among CPUs, GPUs, memory, and storage. Companies capable of delivering combined HBM and HBF solutions are increasingly positioned as strategic players in this evolving landscape.

SK hynix and SanDisk are leveraging their long-standing expertise in HBM and NAND design, packaging, and mass production to accelerate both HBF standardization and commercialization.

“The key to AI infrastructure is to go beyond the performance competition of individual technologies and to optimize the entire ecosystem,” said, Ahn Hyun, President and Chief Development Officer. “Through HBF technology standardization the company will establish acooperative system and present an AI-era optimized memory architecture to create new value for customers and partners.”